Kathua Rape Case Verdict Is Out: Sanji Ram Along With 2 Others Gets Life Imprisonment, Other 3 Get Five Year Sentence

An eight-year-old girl belonging to the nomadic Bakarwal tribe was gang-raped, tortured and killed in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua last January. The event appalled the entire nation.

Out of the seven accused, one was a minor. Sanji Ram, a retired revenue official, Sanji Ram's nephew, Parvesh Kumar (Ram's nephew), Vishal Jangotra (Sanji Ram's son), Deepak Khajuria (police officer), inspector and Anand Dutta and head constable Tilak Raj. The juvenile among the accused will have a different trial. All these have been accused under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 302 (murder) and 376-D (gang-rape).

The in-camera trial finally got completed on June 3. The day-to-day trial had both prosecution and defence counsels. It also examined 114 witnesses throughout the year. The verdict is out today. Five out of the accused were convicted by a special court in Pathankot today. Vishal Jangotra has been acquitted by the court. 

Jammu and Kashmir National Conference leader Omar Abdullah tweeted, "The guilty deserve the most severe punishment possible under law. And to those politicians who defended the accused, vilified the victim & threatened the legal system no word of condemnation are enough."

Amen to that. The guilty deserve the most severe punishment possible under law. And to those politicians who defended the accused, vilified the victim & threatened the legal system no words of condemnation are enough. #KathuaRapeCase https://t.co/gL2FfRL3rJ

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) June 10, 2019

The little girl was missing from a week before her dead body was finally found 1 km away from the village. She went to a pond, grazing her family's horses. She was drugged and kept in a temple where she was raped and murdered. She was strangled and then hit with a stone. The Pathankot court has finally announced the quantum of sentence. 

The court has given the verdict. Life imprisonment of 25 years has been given to Sanji Ram and two others. Three accused who destroyed the evidence have been sentenced to five years in jail. Prosecution lawyers were expecting capital punishment from the court. After the verdict was out, one of the prosecution lawyers said, "We are little disappointed. We had demanded for capital punishment... Maybe, we're planning for that (challenging the verdict)."